Changing rooms

Profile The Shelbourne Hotel: The grand old hotel on the Green is getting a massive face-lift, but will it be a Shel of its …

Profile The Shelbourne Hotel: The grand old hotel on the Green is getting a massive face-lift, but will it be a Shel of its former self, wonders Joe Humphreys

It is one thing to bulldoze Viking ruins, smash up rows of Georgian homes, and uproot ancient trees on O'Connell Street. But it is quite another to tamper with Dublin's favourite watering-holes.

Forget Wood Quay. For many a city native, the worst act of cultural vandalism in recent years was the installation of televisions in the pubs of Baggot Street. Hence the shiver of fear in the capital this week as news sank in of the imminent makeover of yet another Dublin institution, the Shelbourne Hotel, whose restaurants, bars and conference rooms are home-away-from-home for the city's movers, shakers and wannabes. At any one moment in "the Shelbo" one might find politicians, barristers and minor celebrities skulking in corridors, or acting up in the Horseshoe Bar; wealthy foreign visitors checking in at the reception desk amid the hubbub of an impeccably-dressed wedding party; well-known businesspeople sealing deals over an expensive lunch in one of the ground floor eateries; or a team of fashion models drawing a crowd to a product launch in a function room upstairs.

"What would Dublin do without the Shelbourne Hotel?" asked Oliver St John Gogarty. Well, we're about to find out - because over the next 18 months or so the landmark premises on St Stephen's Green will be transformed into a building site. Everything, except for the gym and leisure centre, is due to close around April 4th, to allow for a €40 million "Renaissance-style" facelift, due to be completed in time for the Ryder Cup in September 2006, which is taking place in Co Kildare. After enabling works, the back of the hotel will be demolished, while the listed façade will remain in place.

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Internally, one of the main changes will be the removal of the century-old lift which, management says, no longer meets health and safety requirements. This will open up the soon-to-be-restored staircase, allowing people to look straight down from upper floors to the lobby.

A new entrance to the ballroom will be created from the ground floor, thereby eliminating the need for guests to take a demeaning roundabout trip via the street. Meanwhile, the mezzanine off the first floor will be restored, allowing access to a new rooftop "relaxation" garden.

The first-floor business centre will be upgraded through the installation of high-speed computer cabling, while the second floor will see the creation of an "executive lounge" for hotel guests, complete with 28 lounge chairs, plasma screen TVs and restaurant and bar service. Two fully-kitted bedrooms for wheelchair users will be installed, along with two new customer lifts, while the number of bedrooms will rise from 190 to 275.

A spokeswoman for the hotel says many of the old features will be retained, including the trademark window boxes, long curtains and thick carpets, along with furniture and antiques collected over the past 180 years. A new colour scheme will be introduced, however, namely purple and gold. Think Henry VIII rather than Wexford GAA hues.

"The whole look will be very regal. There will be lots of greens, olives and reds, with gold and royal purple trim in the curtains and carpets," the spokeswoman notes. "Some of the furniture will have round finishes rather than square to add to that regal look."

She says requests from customers to leave the Horseshoe and Shelbourne bars unchanged would be acceded to, with the exception of some painting and decorating work and the addition of air conditioning. Conscious of the storm which greeted the hotel's temporary change to Le Meridien Shelbourne a few years ago, current managers Marriott are opting to leave their name off the front plaque.

Instead it will read, "The Shelbourne: A Renaissance Hotel" - fitting enough for an institution that has had its fair share of rebirths.

ESTABLISHED IN 1824 by a Tipperary Catholic, Martin Burke, the hotel first opened its doors a year before gas lighting had come to Dublin - at a time when St Stephen's Green was still a grazing field for the Lord Mayor's livestock. Burke named the premises after an Earl of Shelbourne, who once had a family home on the site, creating a link with high society from the off.

After Burke's death in 1865, the hotel was sold, furniture and all, to a conglomerate headed by William Jury, who had founded Jury's Hotel on College Green.

"When the revamped hotel opened in 1867," noted Caroline Walsh in her history of the Shelbourne, "it contained such attractions as a ladies' coffee-room and a smoking-room; a hairdressing salon and a telegraph office as well as a general reading-room to which the latest papers and magazines would be regularly supplied."

The Shelbourne's bond with the Dublin glitterati strengthened with the opening of the nearby Gaiety Theatre in 1871. The hotel also became the focus of Dublin's tourist trail, acting as the starting point for coaches making the round trip from the city to Bray and Greystones.

Some such visitors got more than they bargained for in Easter week, 1916. As fighting erupted on the streets outside, afternoon tea was moved from the front lounge to the reading room at the rear of the hotel, but only after "a sniper's bullet . . . [ took] off the heads of some roses pinned to one of the patrons' head gear." Or so, at least, the Shelbourne claims in its own published history.

Of more certainty is the fact that Michael Collins helped to draft the 1922 constitution of the new Irish Free State in room 112. Subsequent famous visitors ranged from Princess Grace of Monaco and the Queen of Tonga to Laurel and Hardy and Luciano Pavarotti.

As for ownership of the hotel, it switched in 1960 to the British-based Trusthouse Forte Group, which undertook a £7 million restoration programme. In 1996, Forte Hotels was bought for £3.1 billion sterling by Granada, which rebranded the Shelbourne as a Le Meridien hotel. When Le Meridien got into trouble in 2001, it sold 11 of its hotels to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in a €115m sale and lease-back agreement. The Shelbourne was threatened with administration on numerous occasions until Marriott stepped in as new managers under a 30-year lease, which began in January 2004.

RBS recently sold the hotel for an estimated €140 million to a consortium of developers. These included three of the investors who took over the Superquinn retail chain for €450 million last January, namely Bernard McNamara, Gerry O'Reilly and Bernard Doyle; along with hotelier John Sweeney, whose properties include the Marriott Johnstown House Hotel in Enfield.

Marriott said it wanted the refurbishment done over a shorter period of time, and in a more concentrated manner, to avoid a prolonged disruption for customers. However, some staff believe the decision is really motivated by a desire to avail of tax relief. Under a soon-to-be-phased-out Department of Finance capital allowance scheme, relief can be claimed on all work completed before July 31st 2006.

A TOTAL OF 227 staff - some with more than 30 years' service - will be made redundant by the move. A portion of the workforce may be rehired but no guarantees are being given.

Employees who spoke to The Irish Times this week were disappointed to leave what they described as a happy workplace. Among those sympathising with them was Jimmy Dixon (72), the proverbial "Mr Shelbourne" who worked at the hotel as a doorman for 51 years until his retirement in 1997.

"It's sad to see it. The Shelbourne was an institution," he says. "On Friday nights you couldn't get in. But it has gone down in recent years, and it definitely needs some painting and decorating."

Also this week there was some consternation - and not a few tears - among wedding couples and other guests who had bookings with the hotel during the refurbishment period. Marriott promised to help find them alternative venues.

Everyone, it seems, accepts the need for refurbishment at the Shelbourne. But will something be lost in the process? For many visitors to the hotel, part of the attraction was its well-worn look. Like that other great - but disappearing - Dublin institution, Bewley's, it served a social function, sometimes lending out meeting rooms to charities for free. And, as with Bewley's, the loitering, passing trade was tolerated rather than shooed out the door.

The Marriott spokeswoman rejects any suggestion that the new hotel will be more impersonal. "It will be a Renaissance feel in an Irish way."

Nostalgic Dubliners may, or may not, find the reborn Shelbourne to their tastes. But non-residents of the city have at least given it a vote of confidence. Already all accommodation is booked out for its opening in Ryder Cup week.